The Chateau de Farcheville, a French castle complete with moat, was another of the properties that Tim Blixseth acquired with the Credit Suisse money. Before it crashed into bankruptcy during the recession, Blixseth hoped to grow his Yellowstone concept -- exclusive resorts for the world's richest people -- from a regional to global operation.

Updated at 5:40 p.m.

Tim Blixseth, the Roseburg native who overcame childhood poverty to become a millionaire timber trader and resort developer, was jailed Thursday by a Montana judge unsatisfied with his excuses for why he couldn't come up with $13.8 million.

U.S. District Court Judge Sam Haddon had ordered Blixseth to hand over the $13.8 million in proceeds from the sale of a Mexican resort to creditors in the disastrous Yellowstone Club venture. The ultra-high-end resort collapsed after the 2008 financial crisis, and creditors have been dogging Blixseth ever since.

Blixseth, 64, who made and lost his first fortune trading Oregon and Washington timberlands, stands accused of illegally draining more than $200 million from the Yellowstone Club.

Blixseth's lawyers said they were uncertain how long it would take for them to come up with the answers sought by the court, meaning he could remain in jail for some time.

Before he was taken into custody, Blixseth spent more than two hours on the witness stand trying to explain what happened in the El Tamarindo deal.

Judge Haddon, clearly exasperated, said Blixseth had offered no proof to back up claims that he spent all the money.

The judge rejected as insufficient the hundreds of pages of financial records presented by Blixseth's attorneys. Many of those documents were in Spanish and had been submitted just two days before Thursday's long-scheduled hearing.

"You are missing the boat here," Haddon told Blixseth's attorneys at one point. "The whole of this man's presentation is substantively based on hearsay."

Yellowstone offered property at a private Montana ski resort and access to other resort properties around the world. It cratered into bankruptcy court after the national economy fell into recession in 2008.

A court-appointed trustee, charged with maximizing the return to Yellowstone creditors, has been pursuing Blixseth since 2009. The club's creditors want him incarcerated for not complying with the payment order. And they got their wish Thursday.

Blixseth delayed potential court sanctions with an unsuccessful appeal to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Blixseth told the court he doesn't have the financial resources to comply with Haddon's order that he provide a bond or liquid collateral equal to the $13.8 million sale price of El Tamarindo. "I am still unable to meet the court's demands concerning the bond as my financial situation has only worsened," Blixseth said in a Dec. 5 court declaration. "I have regrettably lost the ability to put on a spirited and likely meritorious defense."